The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology.
A packet is a formatted unit of data transported in a packet network. A packet consists of two kinds of data: transport control information and user data (also known as payload). The header of a packet includes the transport control information (e.g., source and destination addresses, error detection codes like checksums, and sequencing information), which provides data the packet network needs to deliver the user data across the packet network. The payload of a packet includes the user data.